Edwin Budge

Illegal searches and excessive force by police sometimes go hand-in-hand. This was the case in 2012 when two officers entered the bedroom of a Seattle-area man and shot him 16 times as he lay in his own bed. Remarkably, the man survived this wrongful police shooting. He hired Budge & Heipt to represent him in […]

Spit hoods (also known as “spit masks”) have been increasingly used by police and other law enforcement officers in recent years. A spit hood, or spit mask, is a fabric covering or “hood” that can be placed over a person’s head and secured at the neck with an elastic band. The idea is to prevent […]

Police officers are prohibited under the Constitution from using excessive police force. Whether police force is excessive depends on the facts and circumstances of each case. To measure whether force was excessive, courts look to a number of factors. These include, for example, the nature and severity of the force, whether the person presented an […]

When seeking answers about a wrongful death in jail, the answers don’t always come easy.  A case handled by Budge & Heipt illustrates this point. Late one Friday afternoon, a man was arrested by county police officers as he was getting off a bus near the town of Lahaina, Hawaii. Officers brought the man to […]

Excessive force by police is increasingly featured in the national news.  When police use excessive force against a citizen, the vast majority of police departments require that the officers complete a “use of force report” describing and justifying the force. In a perfect world, these reports would be detailed, complete, and objective. Unfortunately, this is […]

Proving a wrongful police shooting requires hard work and attention to detail. Ultimately, a jury will need to answer this question: was the use of deadly force justified by the officer’s need to eliminate a threat? Or was it an overreaction in a situation that did not warrant it? Because wrongful police shooting cases often […]